Asian shares were mixed Friday as jubilance over positive U.S. economic data and a Wall Street record high were tempered by caution in the region, where the coronavirus vaccine rollout has lagged. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 0.1% to 29,674.31 in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell nearly 0.1% to 7,052.30. South Korea’s Kospi was little changed, inching up less than 0.1% to 3,194.49. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng inched down less than 0.1% to 28,771.21, while the Shanghai Composite added 0.2% to 3,406.93. The contrast in the speed of the vaccine rollout has been striking between the U.S. and Asia. Nearly half of American adults have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, and about 30% of adults in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Japan, where inoculations for the public have barely started, has seen a resurgence of infections in recent weeks. The country’s western metropolis of Osaka reported over 1,200 new infections Thursday, its highest since the pandemic began. A top ruling party official suggested the possibility of canceling the Tokyo Olympics, set to start in July, if infections continue to surge. Also read: Asian shares fall back after S&P 500 hits fresh record high  Prakash Sakpal and Nicholas Mapa, senior economists for ING, said the markets are watching the meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and President Joe Biden, set for the weekend, data from China, including GDP and retail sales, as well as for further news on the pandemic. “Asian markets will likely track gains overnight with optimism driven by positive US data highlighted by retail sales. Investors now turn their focus to a string of China data reports,” they said in a report. Wall Street notched more milestones, as a broad market rally pushed the S&P 500 to an all-time high and the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed above the 34,000 mark for the first time. The S&P 500 rose 1.1%, with technology, health care and communication stocks accounting for much of the upward moves. Only energy and financial companies closed lower. Bond yields fell. The rally came as investors welcomed a suite of encouraging economic reports showing how hungry Americans are to spend again, how fewer workers are losing their jobs and how much fatter corporate profits are getting. Expectations are very high on Wall Street that the economy — and thus corporate profits — are in the midst of exploding out of the cavern created by the pandemic, thanks to COVID-19 vaccinations and massive support from the U.S. government and Federal Reserve. New data on retail sales and jobless claims Thursday helped bolster the view that the economic recovery is accelerating. Also read: Asian shares sink after tech rout pulls Nasdaq 3.5% lower “Another day, another record,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. “The stock market continues to validate the optimistic forecasts from last year, which predicted a strong economy that was driven by consumers emerging from their homes, emboldened by vaccinations or by a belief that the worst of COVID was behind us.” The S&P 500 rose 45.76 points to 4,170.42, surpassing its previous record high of 4,141.59 set on Tuesday. The Dow climbed 305.10 points, or 0.9%, to 34,035.99. The Nasdaq composite added 180.92 points, or 1.3%, to 14,038.76, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies picked up 9.35 points, or 0.4%, to 2,257.07. U.S. retail sales jumped 9.8% in March from February, blowing past economists’ forecasts for 5.5% growth. Much of the surge was due to $1,400 payments from the U.S. government’s latest economic rescue effort hitting households’ bank accounts. Economists said it shows how primed people are to spend as the economy reopens and conditions brighten. That’s huge for an economy that’s made up mostly of consumer spending. Another report gave an encouraging read on the job market, showing 576,000 people applied for unemployment benefits last week. That’s well below the 700,000 that economists had forecast and down from 769,000 the prior week. It’s also the lowest number since the pandemic. Adding to the optimism, more big U.S. companies reported even healthier profits for the first three months of 2021 than analysts had forecast. Expectations are already high for this earnings reporting season, which unofficially got underway on Wednesday and could result in the strongest growth in more than a decade. “You’ve got various pockets of the market now starting to show a broadening recovery,” said Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. BlackRock, PepsiCo and UnitedHealth Group all reported bigger profits for the first quarter than analysts expected. BlackRock rose 2.1%, PepsiCo added 0.1% and UnitedHealth climbed 3.8%. Also read: Asian shares fall on fears over US-China tariffs standoff Even Delta Air Lines, which reported weaker results for the start of 2021 than expected, highlighted areas of optimism. It said it could return to making profits by late summer if the recovery it’s seeing in air travel continues. Its shares fell 2.8%. In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude fell 19 cents to $63.27 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, slipped 19 cents to $66.75 a barrel. In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched up to 108.91 Japanese yen from 108.77 yen. The euro cost $1.1956, down from $1.1984.

Facebook has partnered with Bangladesh’s ICT Division and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to announce a campaign to raise awareness about COVID-19 and help Bangladeshis get vaccinated. The campaign aims to increase people’s uptake of preventive health practices and vaccination intent in the country.  Facebook will take several steps to holistically support vaccine rollout and the nationwide awareness campaign towards safe hygiene practices, particularly given the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Also read:Facebook acknowledges a bug that blocked coronavirus news By encouraging people to visit COVID-19 Information Center, which is also available in Bangla, the platform will make it easier for people to access credible information and best practices on preventive hygiene measures. It also contains modules on mental health and vaccine safety, and provides easy access to www.corona.gov.bd for latest government directives, said a media release on Tuesday. Through News Feed notifications, Facebook will direct people to register for COVID-19 vaccine on www.surokkha.gov.bd and nudge them to continue wearing masks. On World Health Day, the social media platform launched a public education campaign (www.fightcovidmisinfo.com) to help Bangladeshis learn how to identify and combat false information about COVID-19 and related health measures. The public education modules are available in Bangla to ensure that it is more relatable and practical to people in the country. “As Bangladesh is seeing a significant spike in COVID-19 cases like many parts of the world, it’s reassuring to see how health awareness and safe vaccination efforts have been ramped up to reach more people in the country,” said Sabhanaz Rashid Diya, who leads Public Policy for Bangladesh at Facebook. “By working closely with the national health agencies and public health experts, and using Facebook’s scale and speed to reach people, we are committed to do our part to help Bangladeshis access credible information, adopt safe health practices, get vaccinated and come together as a community.” Also read:Facebook working on Instagram for kids under 13   In Bangladesh, Facebook has been working closely with the ICT Division and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of Bangladesh throughout the pandemic to increase awareness on COVID-19 preventive health practices. “Today, it has become crucial for us, as a community, to work hand-in-hand to protect ourselves as increasing adoption of digital lifestyle by all walks of society exposes us to new risks of unprecedented proportions ranging from identity theft to wrong decision because of disinformation. I would like to thank Facebook for taking this broad measure and we are delighted to be part of this campaign to promote vaccination, mask wearing and social distancing to a much greater population,” said Anir Chowdhury, Policy Advisor of a2i (Aspire to Innovate) Programme, ICT Division and Cabinet Division, Government of Bangladesh and UNDP Bangladesh. He added, “At a2i, we are constantly coming up with new innovations and measures to ease the lives of our citizens during these difficult times. We look forward to working with Facebook in finding newer ways to help the citizens of our country.”  Globally, Facebook has connected over 2 billion people to resources from health authorities through the COVID-19 Information Center and removed more than 12 million pieces of harmful misinformation about COVID-19 and approved vaccines from its family of apps.

Despite rapid vaccine rollout in different countries, more than 123 million people have been infected with Covid-19 on Monday, according to the Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Despite the clamor to speed up the U.S. vaccination drive against COVID-19 and get the country back to normal, the first three months of the rollout suggest faster is not necessarily better.

As COVID-19 surged, retired attorney Susan Crowley did some simple math and discovered a chilling fact: people over 60 made up 91% of coronavirus deaths in Oregon. So the 75-year-old was shocked when the state started vaccinating teachers this week before senior citizens in a push to get children back into classrooms.

The European Union lashed out Monday at pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, accusing it of failing to guarantee delivery of coronavirus vaccines without valid explanation, and threatened to impose tight export controls within days on COVID-19 vaccines made in the bloc.

The rapid expansion of COVID-19 vaccinations to senior citizens across the U.S. has led to bottlenecks, system crashes and hard feelings in many states because of overwhelming demand for the shots.

The desperately awaited vaccination drive against the coronavirus in the U.S. is running into resistance from an unlikely quarter: Surprising numbers of health care workers who have seen firsthand the death and misery inflicted by COVID-19 are refusing shots.